“Was it really so far-fetched to think that words had a way of shaping a person's whole life?”

“People are so stupid. They think they've got the whole puzzle figured out, but they're really so far off.”

“Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”

“This seemed far-fetched, but then again, he was holding my hand, so clearly miracles were possible.”

“I tried to think the same thought in as many different religions as possible, so the thought itself wouldn't be limited by any particular way of reasoning, the way words restrict -- the whole eskimo-seventeen-words-for-snow idea.”

“Sometimes I think it's easier to stand up to the whole school -- or the whole world even -- than it is to stand up to one person, especially if that person really matters to you.”